Bellagamba

November 2002] Page 21
Alice Bellagamba
Universitd del Piemonte Orientate
Portrait of a Chief between Past and Present:

Memory at Work in Colonial and Postcolonial Gambia
Introduction
In 1950, Cherno Kady Baldeh, one of the most famous head chiefs in colonial Gambia, went
into retirement after almost three decades of distinguished service and, in his final years, a
series of difficult conflicts and misencounters with the British administration. In 1924, the
colonial government appointed him head chief of Fuladu West, an area that at the time was
considered to be among the most fertile, prosperous, and populous in the Protectorate of
Gambia.1 A prestigious figure and an extremely popular chief (even beyond the boundaries of
his own district), Cherno left in his wake a complex ensemble of memories and testimonies.
The colonial bureaucrats with whom he worked stressed the positive qualities of his persona,
but they also ruthlessly brought to light his defects in character. Their judgments were formu-
lated according to the political exigencies of the moment and, when seen in this context, illus-
trate the diverse agendas and tensions that characterized the colonial administration of The
Gambia. The people of Fuladu West still remember the old chief with great affection because
he took care of his subjects in hard times, such as the Great Depression. His cunning attitude
towards colonial officers, moreover, stands as a symbol of native agency and is perceived as an
expression of his strength and ability as a ruler. Nonetheless, his actions, along with an attitude
at times authoritarian, if not downright rude, also aroused feelings of resentment and envy.
In the following pages I shall focus attention on his personal story and his historical memory,
as embodied in a variety of sources, from colonial documents to oral narratives. Put into a
theoretical frame, this ethnography addresses a series of sensitive issues in the contemporary
debates on social memory, colonial governance, and its legacy in the postcolony. As David
Cohen (1994) has stated, at the beginning of the 1990s, "historically minded anthropologists
and anthropologically minded historians [have begun to listen] to the lively, critical telling,
writing and using of history in settings and times outside the control of the crafts and guilds of
historical disciplines" (Cohen 1994:4). Particular attention has been focused on the production
of popular histories in twentieth-century Africa, and their connections with political, social,
and economic transformations; official memory is subject to scrutiny, and the ideologies and
political projects informing the dialectic between remembering and forgetting in the colonial
and postcolonial state are thus brought to light (see, e.g., Cohen and Atieno Odhiambo 1992;
Roberts 2000; Werbner 1998). In a parallel fashion—starting from the discussion in the early
1980s regarding the "invention of tradition" and the recovery of native custom within the
frame of the colonial state2—an intense debate emerged on the production of history and
ethnographic knowledge within the colony itself. Scholars have begun to examine colonial
documents with a growing interest in the intellectual, social, and political context of their
production (Dirks 1996; Pels 1997). Textual analysis has been combined with historical
contextualization, and the "productive discord" found between and within the sources, their
ambiguities and at times contradictory statements, have been read as a privileged path to "keep
a clear focus on the forces that shaped the colonial encounter and on the modes of power and
Copyright © 2002, American Anthropological Association

Page 22 [PoLAR. Vol. 25, No. 2
knowledge to which it gave rise"

(Comaroff and Comaroff 1991:38). In
reconstructing Cherno's history, I wish
to blend these approaches to colonial
documents with a reliance upon oral
sources.
Colonialism has been inscribed in
popular memory since the beginning of
the colonial encounter. Events were
subject to popular commentary, and
stories and narratives spread through
African societies. Fabian (2001:184)
urges his readers to view these recol-
lections both as a "token for reaction"
and as a "protocol for action," in other
words, as a script that allows the past
to be brought into the present. The
expression "memory-work" should be
used to indicate "this emphasis on
action and on the (often artful) crafting
of shared recollections' (Fabian
2001:184). Popular memory draws
connections between historical events,
depicts colonialism as a complex and
Cherno Kady Baldeh as portrayed in 1945 by Daryll

i ambiguous political project, and under-
scores the day-to-day interaction
between the colonizer and colonized.
Forde. Courtesy of David Gamble. Historical recollections also break the
official silence imposed on native voices, as in colonial documents, natives speak only through
court cases, the letters they address to the administration to request an appointment or a
gratuity after years of government service, or when the collection of testimony carried out by
British officers in times of political disturbance allows them to express their own opinions
(Cohen, Miescher, and White 2001:7, Guha 1994:337).
For Gambians, whether formally educated or not, the memories of people such as Cherno work
like counterpoints, which allow for discussion of the present with a critical attitude that brings
to light its conflictual and problematic dimensions. The institutions and laws that the British
progressively implemented to rule the Protectorate still support Gambian structures of local
government. District chiefs (called seyfolos) mediate between the state and the rural
population, they are responsible for carrying out government policies within their jurisdic-
tions, and they are supposed to represent the problems of their own people at the national level,
voicing the concerns of the rural areas and actively involving themselves in the development
of their districts. They also administer justice in delicate matters such as land disputes and
divorces, both of which are social fields in which custom continuously clashes with modernity,
and are emblematic of many other African postcolonial contexts (see Durham 2002; Ranger
1993; Werbner 1998). In colonial times chiefs' authority, backed as it was by the colonial state,
was virtually absolute. During the late 1940s and 50s, the establishment of District Authorities
formalized the need for head chiefs to make decisions taking into account the advice of village
headmen and prominent elders within their districts. In the early 1960s, with the institution of
Area Councils, they lost control over tax collection and the administration of district revenues
acquired just a few years before, due to postwar local government reforms.3 They maintained
nonetheless a powerful position within the Councils themselves, being ex officio members held
in check only by the commissioner, a bureaucrat nominated by the central government and
responsible for provincial administration. In the Protectorate of the Gambia (established in
1892 and then extended to the Upper River Gambia in 1901), head chiefs were selected by the
commissioner. Under his attentive supervision village headmen and other notables gathered to
express their opinion towards the candidate. Finally, chiefs were appointed by the Governor,
who ultimately had the right to call them in front of a commission of inquiry to investigate
their behavior, and eventually dismiss them. The post-independence period brought the intro-
duction of grassroots electoral politics: councilors (except non-elected members), and the
chiefs themselves, were chosen by the people at the ballot-box, and their candidacy was
supported by political parties (Sillah 1983). Since the military takeover of July 22,1994 (a
profoundly transformative event for the Gambian political scenario, as I will explain in the
final section of this article), chiefs have been appointed by the government, a practice that
became law in April 2002, when a Bill on Local Government was approved by the National
Assembly. The Bill gives the President of the Gambia the power to nominate and dismiss head
chiefs and village heads, without taking public opinion into account.4 Despite the gradual
changes that affected the chiefs' role and the rules of their appointment, Gambian political
debate recognizes the precious role they play in the continuity of custom and tradition at the
local level, even if this role was undoubtedly more relevant during the colonial period. Since
independence, ruling through tradition—as Cherno did—has become a difficult enterprise, and
it is much more difficult to achieve a balance between the pressures of the state and the needs
of the rural areas.
This article is organized into four sections. In the first two sections, I analyze Cherno's
historical figure and his political trajectory during the British colonial period. My aim is to
highlight the complexity of the relation between this chief and the British administration. The
combination of oral and written sources allows me to show how Cherno's political destiny was
not simply molded by the wills and capriciousness of the colonial bureaucrats. It was also
significantly affected by conflicting local political interests and local politicians' abilities to
interface with an ever-shifting colonial agenda. In the first section, I relate positive represen-
tations of Cherno in the colonial literature of the 1920s and 30s to the Indirect Rule ideology
pursued by the British administration. The seeming conservatism of the latter was grounded
more in the need to govern vast territories with limited funds and personnel than in a dispas-
sionate interest in the continuity of African political institutions (e.g., Crowder 1978, 1993;
Mamdani 1996). In the second section, I combine archival sources from the 1940s and 50s
with oral narratives to reconstruct the changing representation of Cherno in the colonial liter-
ature of the period. Realizing that the rights of people to self-determination were becoming
internationally accepted, the British administration was now dedicated to the development and
transformation of native political and social structures (e.g., Young 1994). In light of this
modernizing and mildly democratic agenda, Cherno's reputation became increasingly a
hindrance. The recollections I quote in my discussion touch upon the sensitive issue of why he
resigned as head chief against his will, after so many years of service. The narrators belong to
Page 24 [PoLAR: Vol. 25, No. 2
his extended family. Having witnessed in their youth an event which was painful both for the
Baldeh family and for the entire area, their testimony gives considerable attention to his
dealings with the British authorities responsible for Fuladu West. Another central figure in the
recollection of these events is Farli Baldeh, Cherno's younger brother. At a certain point, he
decided to compete against his brother for the office, manipulating the preexisting tensions
among the head chief, the people of the district, and the colonial administration, thus compli-
cating the story.
In the third and fourth sections, I analyze how Cherno's story has been reinterpreted at
different junctures of Gambian postcolonial history. In the third section, I begin my analysis
from an article published in the mid-1970s in a Gambian newspaper by an intellectual sensitive
to Gambian history and culture. In this text the ability and dedication of Cherno as a chief are
praised, and local memories are appropriated into a national narrative, as in other African
countries before and after independence.5 In the fourth section, I show how narratives of
Cherno significantly changed in the aftermath of the 1994 coup d'etat in the Gambia. The
elders with whom I conversed about Cherno now focused their attention on the more
repressive aspects of Cherno's politics. In their accounts of colonialism, but also in bits of
conversation, they associated the institution of "Te sito" or "communal labor" (presented by
the military government as a show of civic spirit) with the "forced labor" that they had experi-
enced when Cherno was ruling under the British. Colonialism thus offered a backdrop on
which to represent and criticize the current situation.
Rosalind Shaw (2001:51) has shown how "an overwhelming focus on the mutability of the
past ('the politics of the past in the present') in both anthropology and history has tended to
obscure the mutability of the present—the ways in which memories form a prism for the
configuring of present experience." Cherno's story shows both processes in action. It offers
precious insight into the dynamics between the British colonizer and local authorities, and it
also reveals how the readings of this interaction might change according to the shifts in the
context of narrative and political agenda (e.g., Cole 1998; Shaw 2001; White 2001). This is a
story concerned with the political use of the past in order to legitimize the present, a strategy
used under the British administration, and then over and over again in post-independence
Gambia. The recovery of local traditions helps politics to take root in society, making it seem
familiar against the background of popular expectations and memories. But Cherno's adven-
turous life also speaks to the shadows that past experiences cast on contemporary events: one
lives in the present and understands its complexities, but in order to do so one needs meaning
to be grounded in memory, which often emerges in a fragmented and dispersed manner. The
present, too, is as malleable as the past, and it is lived through a set of disputed representations
that produce a feeling of continuity and familiarity, even in the face of disruptive events.
British Bureaucrats and Head Chiefs, or Notes on British Policies in the Protectorate of
the Gambia during the First Decades of the Twentieth Century
In 1924, Cherno Kady Baldeh came to power. In the previous five years, since 1919, Fuladu
West district had had four head chiefs, one less efficient than the other; none of them remained
in office for long: some died; others, accused of being dishonest and weak, were removed by
the administration. They were among the wealthy and renowned people of the area, but the
colonial government chose them without taking into account any criteria of hereditary legit-
imacy. In 1922, Major Macklin, the British officer responsible for Fuladu West and the
surrounding districts, in a report to the Governor of the Gambia, suggested that somebody who
belonged to a former ruling family should be selected to keep the office within the same
family.6
British officers felt that the descendants of former chiefs should be given an opportunity to
distinguish themselves in the administration of the Protectorate, and Cherno, being one of the
sons of Mussa Moloh Baldeh (the last independent ruler of Fuladu who subsequently ceded
the territory to the British Crown in 1901), harbored hereditary claims to the position. In the
mentality of the colonizers, such claims could guarantee greater stability for local govern-
mental structures and thus made them more acceptable for the native population. Used to
dealing with whites after having worked for a European businessman, Cherno Kady Baldeh
actually secured his post on a recommendation from native and European traders operating in
the Middle and Upper River Gambia. Immediately he showed excellent qualities of leadership:
he was interested in the development of the area, capable of collecting taxes and running the
courts, and able to command respect for the orders of the administration. In short, he was a
proud man, but one also respectful of the colonial hierarchy. In his monthly diary, Major
Macklin noted: "This chief, when my own horses are not available, invariably supplies me
with his own horse, while he proceeds on foot. This seems to be a point of honor among the
Fulas."7
Cherao's ability to size up the people he worked with and to play upon their idiosyncrasies and
weaknesses was well known in colonial circles. He knew that Europeans liked to be flattered
and shown the proper amount of deference. For instance, nothing would have made them more
nervous than a long walk barefoot under a hot sun to fulfill their duties. In Cherao's
perspective, one needed to know their needs, and to try to satisfy them as much as possible,
while giving them the sense of security that everything was, indeed, exactly how they wanted
it Their sudden and often violent moodswings had to be kept under control, because when
they realized that things were not as they had imagined (or more accurately, as officers had
reported them to be to their superiors), they were quick to turn to violence, thus demonstrating
in the most brutal fashion who was really in charge. Arrests, firings, commissions of inquiry,
exile, imprisonment, or in some cases, capital punishment were the acts of violence designed
to teach a lesson to Fuladu West and other areas of the Gambia, and to bring them into the
imperial orbit. It was also a lesson that, by the 1920s, the population had already taken great
pains to learn.
During the period of Major Macklin, the commissioner kept a close eye on local goings-on.
He visited the main settlements periodically, collecting taxes, listening to the village elders,
and dispensing justice.8 The chiefs were simply supposed to insure that the forces of order
were respected, to assist in convening the public assemblies of headmen and compound heads,
and to explain any new developments or government requests: in short, to act as mediators
between the commissioner and the population. Later, the commissioner's role became one of
counselor and supervisor of native politics, and his contact with people became more sporadic
due to the rapid turnover in colonial administrators and their insufficient knowledge of the
local language and everyday events, both of which favored the increase in the power and
prestige of the chiefs.9
The ordinances of the 1930s, designed to formalize the structure of Indirect Rule also codified
a bipolar concept of citizenship. In the colony (i.e., Bathurst and environs), British law was in
effect. The governor was assisted in his tasks by a Legislative Council and an Executive
Council, both composed of representatives of the largest interest groups in the country. In the
Protectorate, however, a much contested mixture of local customs and modern practices
continually codified and revised was put into practice; the basic idea was that the inhabitants
of the rural areas would be respectable Imperial subjects if they continued to be good subjects
of the local authorities, who had been co-opted into the colonial state structure. Sooner or later
even the rural people would come to recognize the advantage of progress, but in the meantime
one had to be patient, because if changes were implemented too suddenly it would only cause
confusion and social unrest. In the colonial mentality, customs and social change were recon-
ciled by representing society and its historical development in an evolutionary perspective
(Mamdani 1996; Pels 2002:4).
Cherno was a generous chief and lived surrounded by artists and youths. He loved "traditional"
culture in all of its varied expressions, from dance to music, and he encouraged it by organ-
izing meetings, ceremonies, and other cultural displays. People enjoyed these performances
and loved the entertainment that the head chief could provide them. In popular memory, his
ability to accumulate and redistribute wealth, forge unity and consensus, and show a sense of
responsibility for his entourage still represents the benevolent side of power.
To fulfill his tasks, Cherno often turned to traditional symbols, grounded in the consciousness
of the area's inhabitants. During World War II, he ran the recruitment campaign, using a family
spear to call the men of the region to arms and assumed the task of providing food, especially
meat, to the recruits during their stay in Gambia.10 Moreover, the colonial insignias that he
wore with such pride allowed him to reinforce his own prestige among the populace. The
medal of honor, the respect shown to him by the Governor, the esteem attached to his words
and deeds were the public expressions of his close ties to the colonizer's world. In supporting
him, Cherno's followers declared themselves to be, whether voluntarily or involuntarily,
supporters of the colonial government. Questioning the head chief was tantamount to calling
into question the legitimacy of the British administration, of which he was one of the
immediate and tangible symbols. Cherno governed Fuladu West in an energetic way: the
headmen from the most important settlements were loyal to him, and the younger members of
the Baldeh family were enrolled in the native police force, the badge messengers in charge of
enforcing the mandates of colonial law. They acted quickly in response to possible "rebels,"
reporting them to the commissioner. Whoever was suspected of attempting to overthrow
Cherno was accused of improper conduct and relieved of his post. Young people who
questioned the chief's authoritarian style of governance, the so-called "hotheads," usually
ended up leaving the area and migrating towards urban areas.
The colonial bureaucrats didn't much care for Cherno's style, who at once showered them with
adulation, including all the requisite gestures of submission, and at the same time flaunted a
considerable degree of personal autonomy. They needed people like him nonetheless, men
predisposed to collaborate with them while still able to command respect from the local
populace. For this reason they often turned a blind eye to his "double dealing." In this sense,
the following judgment is emblematic, made in 1935 by the commissioner of MacCarthy
Island Province, of whose jurisdiction Fuladu West was part:
He is the most powerful and respected chief, certainly in the Province, perhaps
in the whole Protectorate. His abrupt and self-opinionated manner has sometimes
been criticised, but this is almost entirely due to his very real appreciation of his
position as "father of his people" and to his desire fully to understand the points
at issue. He has a complete control of his district, even to the extent of being able
to be despotic or dishonest in some of his actions, without any complaint being
made by the parties concerned.... He was awarded His Majesty's Silver Jubilee
Medal during the year and he was already the holder of the Silver Medallion.11
In the 1930s, when these observations were filed, the official slogan was to "preserve the
authority of the traditional chiefs" (see, for instance, Kuklick 1991:194-195; Pels 1996).
Perhaps Cherno was dishonest, but on the whole he embodied the paternalistic ideal of power
that the colonial administration had placed at the center of its colonial policy. The key point
for the entire dispute, however, was to maintain consensus: to undermine Cherno's popularity
would have only served to transform him into a sort of colonial victim, making room for even
greater opposition and popular discontent. It is here that the British policies showed their
contradictions and weaknesses: the government had assimilated the local hierarchies in order
to control the territory and its population, whereas those in the hierarchies allowed themselves
to be appropriated by the colonial state in the pursuit of their own personal politics of prestige.
Beloved and respected chiefs were considered dangerous, as in the history of the Protectorate
there had been cases in which a British administrator had had to defend himself before his
superiors against charges of abuse, improper conduct, and illicit sexual activity with local
women, leveled against him by the head chief himself.12 In order to act against Cherno, it was
necessary to identify a fissure and thereby upset the existing balance of power, and precisely
such a chance materialized at the end of World War n.
Cherno Kady Balden's Retirement in the Colonial Archive and in Oral Sources
In the Protectorate of the Gambia, as elsewhere in British Africa, the agenda of the late 1940s
and early 50s was meant "to capture emergent political forces and temper their militance with
responsibility" (Young 1994:192), and this radically changed the context in which the
relationship between the chiefs and the colonial government was negotiated. Many of the
postwar colonial administrators were sincerely devoted to social change, and in this period the
first agricultural development projects were inaugurated in the rural areas. The underdevel-
opment of the Protectorate became an issue at the official level. World War II had an important
impact upon the population: in contributing to the war effort, young men had shared in the
suffering and deprivation of the British people, in a spirit of brotherhood that encouraged a
sense of belonging to a community of Imperial subjects. Back home, with spending money in
their pockets, these Gambians recognized the advantages that would result from improvements
in education, health, and nutrition (Wright 1997:208-209; also Crowder 1993). The nationalist
movements in the former Gold Coast (Ghana) and in Nigeria had put pressure on Great Britain
to guarantee greater constitutional freedoms, winds of change that rapidly reached the Gambia
and Sierra Leone as well (Wright 1997:213).
In 1947 the municipality of Bathurst was put under the control of a Town Council, elected by
its inhabitants. It was during this period that the first political parties began to emerge in
Bathurst and its surroundings, coalescing the feelings of educated Gambians, who now asked
for a share in the administration of the Colony and in the civil service as well. In the
Protectorate a Council of Elders was added alongside the authority of the head chiefs, a change
that was supposed to allow the inhabitants a greater level of participation in decisions made on
their behalf. Indirect Rule itself was called into question, as it was seen in colonial circles and
in the new Gambian political debate as an obstacle to the full development of civil society in
the rural areas. Chiefs represented the most conservative social group, and were looked at with
a certain mistrust by Gambian politicians, who regarded them as one of the main supporters of
the colonial state, even if some of the chiefs had already figured out on their own that times
were changing and that they should ally themselves with the pro-independence forces (see
Crowder 1958; Gailey 1961). In the meantime, the appointment of a Senior Commissioner
responsible for the financial and political coordination of provincial administration was tanta-
mount to a major centralization in the management of the rural areas, a development that
would increase after the independence of the Gambia (Gailey 1964:133). The slogans of the
day were "progress," "participation," and "development." Cherno Kady Baldeh, so appre-
ciated in the previous decades for his ability to embody tradition and custom in the day-to-day
administration of his district, now became the symbol of political backwardness.
For almost twenty years the life of Fuladu West had been marked by public displays of
consensus and by an underlying resentment towards the administration and the chief himself,
in a variable scheme of alliances which, at least for a while, had permitted Cherno to remain
in power. Poor people in the district respected their chief for his ability to assist them in times
of hardship and to feed them during the "hungry season," that period of the year, in the midst
of the rains, when the previous harvest was ending and the new one was not yet ready. Rich
and wealthy cattle owners, prosperous farmers and traders were displeased by Cherno's
tendency to plunder their properties, as he forced them to provide cattle, millet, and even
money, which he promptly redistributed to his large entourage. Provincial administration itself
had to tolerate the attitude of the old chief, as Cherno asked for rice to feed his large family;
he borrowed from traders the resources he needed to support his munificence, without paying
for his debts, which was quite an embarrassing habit for the colonial officers who were respon-
sible for his deeds.
Through all this, the colonial state kept on gathering reports, whether positive or negative, not
so much for reasons of historical documentation as to guarantee administrative continuity,
rewriting them to fit its own needs and construct its own evidence. Representations of native
society were born of those documents in the colonizers' possession, with today's information
tailored to agree with that of yesterday. Moreover, when contradictions did arise, one searched
the documents for clues to construct an alternative representation of the events. A collection of
documents in the Gambian National Archives speaks to the intense government control over
the chiefs, whether it concerned confidential reports on their work or files compiled in
moments of particular friction between the administration and its subjects. The documents on
Cherno belong to both categories: those that address routine work relationships and others
compiled in the 1950s to convene a committee of inquiry to investigate his conduct, a prelude
to what would be his retirement.
In the events that marked the last period of Cherno's rule, one can detect two different
processes in action: specifically, his relationship with government representatives at the time
and the professional ambitions of Farli Baldeh, Cherno's younger brother. Colonial corre-
spondence paints its own portrait of Farli Baldeh, and it is through documents that his
maneuvers to disgrace his brother can be clearly identified. But his malicious attitude may
have gone unnoticed were it not for oral sources, because it is precisely in oral sources that the
relationship between the two brothers comes out in greatest detail. In the following text,
Mahira Baji, an elder whose family has been associated with the Balden since the time
Cherno's father was the ruler of Fuladu, focuses on two points in depicting Cherno's dismissal:
1) his tense relationships with the British administrators (namely Commissioner Sealy and
Commissioner Davies, who were in charge of Fuladu West in the late 1940s and early 50s) and
2) Cherno's brother's political ambitions.
One commissioner was posted here. He was called Commissioner Sealy. Then
Cherno and that commissioner quarreled at a big conference in [the locality of]
Brikama (Kombo).13 Cherno embarrassed Sealy very much at that place. When
he returned from the conference, Sealy was fed up with him; as Farli Baldeh14
realized that, he began to go behind his back. Sealy told him: "This old man
embarrassed me and I shall also put shame on him."
When Sealy said that, Farli began to contest for chieftaincy in this country, going
from one person to another in the district; that continued until it was time for
Sealy to leave. He had recorded everything about Cherno in his papers.
[Commissioner] Davies came. When he came, he did not get on well with
Cherno. Davies ordered the yard tax to be increased by sixpence for every house.
Cherno said that would not happen, that his district would not be able to pay that.
Davies was offended; they quarrelled. Farli went close to him; Davies said: "I
shall remove him and I shall give the district to you!"
The dispute started like that. Davies travelled around with Farli, asking the Fulbe
what Cherno had done wrong to them. Some would say: "He took two head of
cattle from me!" Others would say, "I gave him so much cattle!," "I bribed him
with this and with that," others said. That was how they travelled throughout the
district recording the complaints. At the end the trouble developed into a court
case.15
Mahira Baji's text is taken from a longer narrative in which he stressed how Cherno ruled,
sharing his power with other people, above all Farli Baldeh. Over time Farli's power and
prestige within the district had grown, until he thought he was popular and strong enough to
try to get the post. According to the narrator, Farli's ambitions create the context within which
the tense relationships between Cherno and the British officers are inscribed. It is interesting
to compare this perspective, generally shared by the elders of Fuladu West, with the testimony
of Mohammadou Farli Baldeh, son of Farli Baldeh. His version of events tends to downplay
his father's ambitions, and to attribute all of Cherno's problems to the colonial officers, thus
addressing another relevant point concerning popular memories of the colonial encounter: the
attitude that British officers displayed in front of the chiefs and the populace. Gylen Davies,
in particular, is remembered by the people of Fuladu West as a tough and demanding ex-
serviceman. Young but deeply aware of his power, he acted ruthlessly and liked to show that
he was in control of the situation. Mohammadou Farli Baldeh's text also alludes to another
important figure in the colonial context: the interpreter, who mediated between the district
chief, who could not speak English, and the commissioner, whose fluency in the native
languages was quite restricted. The interpreter mentioned in the text lived in Farli Baldeh's
village, and possibly sided with Farli:
This Davies came and found Cherno like that Davies was a very bad commis-
sioner, and he took Cherno by surprise, but Cherno told him: "You are too young
for me! You have found me with my family, and you want to disgrace me. When
I became a chief, you were not even born yet!"
He told the interpreter: "Tell him!" By then Baro Sanyang was the interpreter.
Baro said that to Davies, Davies replied: "Yes, I am young, but I can give orders
to the elderly!"
No one had ever told Cherno such a thing; this is what had gone wrong between
them. They were like that: Davies tried everything to get Cherno removed, but
he had nothing on Cherno. Later on, Davies went on leave, and another commis-
sioner was brought to wait for him. That commissioner gave Cherno full respect.
He was telling to Cherno: "You are the son of a Mansa [Mandinka: ruler], Mansa
Mussa Moloh!"
He gave him full respect, because Cherno had done a lot for the government
Davies was not like that; he was always very rude to Cherno. When he came
from leave, he was angry with Cherno. People complained about Cherno, and he
was listening to those complaints. The interpreter did not explain to him that
those were only bad words. Anyone who came to complain about Cherno, he, the
commissioner, would write it down. This is how things were. Anyone who
explains it without this, he might have forgotten.16
Was it Farli Baldeh who created the split between the old chief Cherno and the colonizers, or
the colonizers who took advantage of the already existing tensions between Cherno and a part
of his district? Colonial documents and oral sources recall a man who was illiterate, and who
let his younger brother—who knew how to read and write Arabic—act as his proxy. Farli's
modest habits and deference had made a good impression upon the colonial administrators;
compared to Cherno, he seemed poised to symbolize the transition to democracy, whereas
Cherno was perceived as an obstacle to change. Together, Farli Baldeh, who wanted the job for
himself, and Gylen Davies, who wanted greater recognition in colonial circles, dedicated
themselves to the collection of the necessary evidence to convene a commission of inquiry,
soliciting testimony to show conclusively that the inhabitants of Fuladu West no longer shared
the concept of power promoted by Cherno.17 The negative judgments that had accumulated
over the years, elaborated upon and compiled in a single dossier, confirmed the opinion that the
government had arrived at in the preceding years: that of a man forty years behind the times.
Cherno had too many wives and countless followers, a profligate lifestyle, and, most impor-
tantly, he was too conservative: "The type of African, who is to be found in ever increasing
numbers, who wants to have a say in the affairs of his land is a type which Cherno neither
understands nor likes."18 "The time has come, I think, to ring down the curtain on the existing
feudal scene,"19 the commissioner wrote in response to the decision reached by the judges. The
document drafted by the Commission of Inquiry brings together the irregularities with which
the chief was charged: a) misappropriation of funds; b) corruption in his position as head
judge; c) exception of certain categories of citizens from taxes owed to the government, and
imposition of personal tribute to maintain his large entourage; d) control over the opinions of
the area's inhabitants and persecution of dissidents; and e) filtering of the information that
reached the commissioner. The scene was set: for almost twenty years, a despot had governed
with the support of the colonial administration.
Oral sources add their own details to this picture. Cherno is represented as a man able to create
an order based on the respect that youth gave to elders and, in his own way, had managed to
balance the hierarchy between the colonizer and the colonized, thereby winning the favor of
those in power, without losing the esteem of his own subjects. The events that led to his inves-
tigation took their cues from a symbolic break in the status quo. Cherno and Gylen Davies had
a disagreement, and Davies reminded Cherno which of the two was really in command.
Perhaps it would have all ended there, if not for a new alliance forming on the horizon. Fuladu
West split into two factions/Many voiced their resentment in having to support Cherno's
generous lifestyle, one that had been tolerated by the government and by the local population
but was now viewed as a form of corruption. Moreover, no matter how much evidence Farli
and Davies collected, it still would not yield the desired result. In public, Cherno defended
himself admirably; oral sources say that the accusations against him were thrown out and that
the witnesses retracted their testimony. During the trial, the oratory of the chief emerged victo-
rious over these false testimonies. Mahira Baji, whom I quoted at the beginning of this section,
concluded his account as follows: "Davies became very angry with Farli, saying you have
falsely put me into a fight against your brother. Of all the things you said to me, not one was
true. He left Farli to himself."20
Challenging the official representation, oral sources thus create an implicit commentary on the
very idea of the archive; the written word, officialized and filed, is represented as true, yet is
false all the same. Mahira Baji, speaking of Commissoner Sealy, is quoted as saying: "He had
recorded everything about Cherno in his papers." Mohammadou Farli Baldeh also stresses this:
"Anyone who came to talk about Cherno, he, the commissioner, would write down." According
to the two narrators, commissioners were easily taken in by local factions; they followed rumors
and read these rumors according to their convenience. In popular memory the important point
was that Cherno proved able to contest the allegations fabricated against him, thus standing as
the victim of the plot between his brother and the colonizers. In any case, he lost his position
and died in poverty just a few years after his retirement. In the official documents we see the
Commission of Enquiry acting cautiously, less prone to mistreat an elderly head chief in public.
Its advice was to encourage him to leave his post and to attribute the decision to his age. In
consideration for services rendered, he would thus be guaranteed a pension.21 In the more open
political climate of the 1950s, such a harsh move would have been considered a violent act, as
it was reminiscent of other equally violent events that had occurred during the annexation of
Gambia into the British Empire, ones that were best left forgotten for all concerned.
Overtly condemning Cherno Kady Baldeh would have meant that the British were implicitly
condemning themselves as well, having not just tolerated, but supported him as their own repre-
sentative for so long. Farli was set aside, in light of the tensions that the split between the two
brothers had caused in the region, and above all because he was closely linked to the "improper"
conduct of the elderly chief. A younger and better educated man was then chosen to guide
Fuladu West up to the eve of independence. In a climate characterized by political parties and
electoral consistency, Laning Baldeh, Cherno's son and supporter of future Gambian president
Dawda Jawara, would be elected by a majority of votes. He remained in office for more than
thirty years, and retired in 1997. In several ways history apparently repeats itself, and when it
involves public office, only three things can happen: either you die, you go quietly into
retirement, or you are thrown out of office. This was the opinion expressed in 1994 by one of
the elders of Fuladu West, the chief of an important commercial settlement who simultaneously
attempted to keep his own post in the aftermath of military takeover of July 22, 1994.
Ba-bili Mansa: The Bridgebuilder Chief
Immediately after independence, the newly-born Republic of the Gambia was imbued with a
climate of great confidence, albeit that international observers voiced their skepticism with
expressions like "an improbable nation" or "the groundnut colony" (Rice 1967; Sallah
1990:623). Donald Wright (1997:226) has well expressed the feeling that characterized the
rural areas: the dominant party, the People's Progressive Party (P.P.P.), led by Dawda Jawara
(who was to govern the Gambia for the next thirty years) was rural-based, and people in the
rural areas "expected the government, the Party, the Prime minister . . . to look after them."
Despite the rhetoric of the early 1950s, late colonial developments had remained mainly
concentrated on the coast and in the capital, Bathurst. Modernization now appeared to be an
achievable goal for the interior as well. One could say, and rightly so, that in Gambian society
at that time the future was more important than the past. The colonial experience had to be
forgotten, and history decolonized, re-appropriating memories of the precolonial past to make
life in the present more creative and autonomous. In the mid 1970s, this optimism had given
way to a more disenchanted attitude. As severe drought and the international oil crisis struck
the Gambia, the ideals of modernization promoted only a decade before were already out of
date.22 It is at this point that the past became a rhetorical tool, both to praise the virtues of
tradition and to contest the inefficiency of contemporary leaders. The following article,
published in a Banjul newspaper in the mid-1970s and inspired by historical events, praises the
virtues of Cherno Kady Balden as a chief and a progressive man. The bridge that Cherno had
built on the River Gambia, mobilizing a workforce and the resources of the region is depicted
as an example of "Te sito" (in the Mandinka language "communal labor") an institution
promoted and practiced in those days as a noble path towards development, a justifiable
involvement of local communities in the state's attempt to modernize:
By 1930 Cherno Kady Balden had been the Chief of Fuladu West for five years.
He had a great dream, and he was determined to see it come true. He conceived
the unprecedented idea of building a bridge across the river at Sankuli Kunda,
connecting the Jangjanburay Island to the Fuladu mainland, and the rest of the
country.
He popularized the idea to his subjects and undertook the task of mobilising
craftsmen of the whole district; carpenters, blacksmiths, shipwrights, etc.,
placing abundant labour force at their disposal. Working under the Chiefs
personal supervision, on a purely voluntary basis with no financial reward
attached, the team completed its task after six months of intensive w o r k . . . . Put
against the capacity of modern technology, Cherno Kady's accomplishment
would be considered moderate. For that period and in those circumstances,
however, it was a tremendous achievement—a model of community mobilisation
for social labour for the common good. It was a prototype of 'Te Sito."
Today, nearly half a century later, Sankuli Kunda to Jangjanburay has no reliable,
effective crossing system. The hand-drawn ferry is constantly out of order and,
at the best of times, crossing the 110-metre wide river is an arduous and time-
consuming affair. . . . The people of the region have cried out for help since
colonial days, and have urged the authorities for something effective to be done,
once and for all. Alas! Their cries then, as now, only fell and still fall on deaf ears.
The Voice of the people (vox populi) is that they be saved from further peril.23
The text also includes several points worth commenting upon. First of all, the journalist under-
scores the lack of interest in people's needs which marked both the colonial and postcolonial
administration. In fact, the post-independence break with the colonial past itself should be
considered a political myth, at least on the local level, where patterns of subjugation that had
emerged during colonial times were reinforced through the co-opting of local elites in electoral
politics. During the late 1960s and early 70s, Weil (1968, 1971) as well as Nyang (1974)
reported how the People's Progressive Party played upon an idealized vision of precolonial
society in order to gain political support in the rural areas; the leader as responsible for the
community, harmony, and consensus within the community itself became key concepts in this
discourse. This representation of the past had a moral force in the present, as it was used by
the local elites themselves to smooth over conflicts, and to conceive of politics as an essen-
tially communal project 24 In this context chiefs were turned into pawns in a political game
played from the capital, in which they served to manufacture consensus during electoral
campaigns. Chiefs were important not only in the political arena, but also in that of the cultural
symbolic. Politically, they were the hinge between the state and the rural population; this
remained their role even after independence. Culturally, they knew the customs, as they had to
implement justice within their district according to customary rules; they were familiar with
political and social life at the grassroots level, and with the articulation through time of
alliances and conflicts within local communities. Given that these politicians were elected, the
chief's adherence to the majority Party line became an important criterion, both in the selection
of candidates and in the ability to succeed in completing their own terms in office.
In the meantime, the chiefs became low-level bureaucrats linked to the orders of the
government, whereas the politicians appropriated the traditional symbols of power, which men
like Cherno Kady Balden had helped to consolidate during the colonial period. Displays of
generosity, the large entourages, the redistribution of wealth became the hallmarks of a legit-
imized power capable of gaining access to state resources and using them for the common
good. Similar to some of his contemporaries, Cherno accomplished the goal of creating a sense
of continuity between colonial rule and local political traditions; now he became the icon of
the vitality of the past, the symbol of the leader beloved by his community, a man who rooted
himself in a family tradition of rulership, but who also demonstrated a progressive attitude and
the will to improve the conditions of his district.
Second, the journalist recalls the glory that Cherno derived from the enterprise, a feat that
elevated his symbolic status in popular memory to such an extent that he was given the
honorific title "Ba Bib' Mansa," "the chief who built the bridge over the river." He uses the
example to contest the inability of the government to provide its citizens with basic services,
thus calling its legitimacy into question. He neglects to mention an important fact, however:
in 1930, when the work was completed, the institution of forced labor was in effect. It was
regulated a few years later with an ordinance, on the urging of the League of Nations,
inasmuch as the bureaucrats themselves were prone to consider it a mixture of native traditions
and coercion that would do more harm than good to the political life of the Protectorate in the
long run. This new ordinance required the chiefs to feed the laborers, and to do this with their
meager official salaries meant that they had to obtain credit from businessmen, thus incurring
debt that was usually difficult to repay. That is why an enthusiastic chief determined to
improve conditions in his area risked losing popularity, and work done unwillingly was often
of poor quality and thus useless in any case.25
Despite the negative opinion expressed by colonial officers, forced labor remained a feature of
Gambian chiefs' power until the 1950s. The division of politics into modern and traditional
spheres left room for ambiguous practices halfway between custom and coercion (Cooper
2000:129ff.; Ferme 1999; Mamdani 1996:148ff.). In documents, any form of resentment,
anger, or discontent that the people felt towards Cherno was recorded only marginally: when
he called his subjects to work he was respecting a custom, but whoever refused to work for the
good of the community was subject to a cash fine and ran the risk of being arrested.26 And it
is these controversial elements that the elders of Fuladu West underscored in their oral histories
given in the last months of 1994; appropriated into the official narratives of the 1970s in order
to promote historical continuity with the values of the precolonial era, the figure of Cherno
now served as an implicit commentary on contemporary events, and military rule in particular.
Is it "Community Service" or "Forced Labor"? Memories of Colonialism in the Era of
Military Rule
On July 22, 1994, a group of young low-level army officers forced President Dawda Jawara
into exile, dissolved parliament, and arrested ministers in a bloodless coup. This peaceful
military takeover was the expression of a growing tension within Gambian civil society and in
the lower ranks of the army (Kandeh 1996:388). In the 1960s and 70s, Dawda Jawara had
succeeded in reconciling the nationalism of the educated elite with the aspirations and senti-
ments of the rural areas, thus inaugurating a period of greater popular participation; in 1981 a
previous coup d'etat had been violently suppressed, thanks to Senegalese military inter-
vention. The president had watched the general consensus around him disintegrate, in contrast
to the preceding decades in which Gambians had looked at him with affection and esteem. The
country was in economic crisis, having been practically strangled by structural adjustment
plans. Dissatisfaction, furthermore, had been slowly increasing in the early 1990s, especially
among young people who, in spite of their higher level of education, were struggling to find
work. They viewed Europe and the United States as their only hope of achieving economic
success. For those who had neither the education nor the necessary funds to obtain a visa,
military service remained an option. Although poorly paid, soldiers traveled for reasons of
training, and as civil servants (another position equally sought after, if not more so), they were
eligible for professional training courses basic to the making of a future career. In the eyes of
many, Jawara's reelection in 1992, in spite of the mudslinging campaign tactics of the
opposition, clearly showed that the democratic path to change was blocked: in the opinion of
its citizens Gambian society was shown to be "marked by growing leadership corruption,
endemic poverty and public discontent" (Kandeh 1996:391; see also Hughes 1991; Wiseman
1996).27
Soon after the 1994 coup, as I have stated earlier, I was in my second period of field work, and
I was asking elderly people to tell me the history of Fuladu West. The military had been
governing the country for the last few months. They had to show both the people and the inter-
national community that they had succeeded in bringing the Gambia under their control
without sending it into the downward spiral of violence that had already ruined neighboring
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Senegalese region of Casamance. Among the first actions of the
military government was to sign a much disputed decree banning all political activity for more
than two years, which was to go down in history as Decree Number 4 (4 August 1994). It was
repealed in the summer of 1996, on the eve of presidential elections that would have given
legitimacy to those responsible for the military takeover (Njie 1996:126).28
Because of the ban, I was careful in my fieldwork to avoid any explicit reference to the post-
independence era, when politics had become an important part of life, not only for the
educated elite, but also for the rural population. The main topic of my conversations with the
elderly inhabitants of Fuladu West was colonialism, a topic that was nonetheless a point of
departure for commentary on the current situation. In a talk with one of Cherno's sons, the
head chief at the time, he mentioned the issue of the bridge while narrating his father's deeds,
saying explicitly: "by then there was forced labor, the chief called and the people had to
come."29 This assertion is meaningful, especially when compared with the newspaper article
and the official attitude toward the chiefs as I described in the previous section. One could ask:
why did the same historical event, idealized as a form of communal labor during the 1970s,
now take on authoritarian connotations?
In that same period, furthermore, the military was actively involved in a public morale-
building campaign, forming a commission of inquiry (The Public Assets and Property
Recovery Commission) to investigate corruption, maintaining that the current national crisis
was partly due to the lack of responsibility and discipline on the part of its citizens. Corruption
had spread through the society's bloodstream like a disease that reached even its most humble
citizens, who were now more used to living off foreign remittances than from working
(Kandeh 1996:393; Njie 1996:146ff; Wiseman 1996:930). The military had also given a
second wind to the institution of Te sito. The declared objective was once again that of
improved hygiene in public places; decent roads, bridges, and paths; and clean cities and
villages. In the capital and the provinces, in large urban neighborhoods and in small rural
towns, enthusiastic participation in this initiative was a sign of acceptance of the new
government's policy. Refusing to get involved, whether because of individual laziness or
passive resistance, was commented upon by the public, which was split between those who
supported change and those who preferred a return to the previous system, or better yet,
immediate elections. The balance achieved over thirty years had been upset; whoever had
worked for the previous government risked being investigated, whereas whoever had been
excluded from power now hoped for justice. In the provinces, a career soldier had replaced the
civil servant responsible for the structures of local government, as it was in colonial days,
when military and ex-servicemen were more often chosen for this task.
In this politically uncertain context, communal labor took on more ambiguous connotations
than it had had twenty years before, when it had been officially perceived as a communal and
essentially African way to achieve development. The idea that it was truly "free" and voluntary
service failed to find anything near a consensus. "Freedom" was something else—freedom of
speech, political expression, association, and choice—elements that at that moment were
banned from civil society. The military emphasized order and discipline, so that it almost
seemed that The Gambia had been turned into a military barracks. The citizens knew that they
were subject to forms of control and coercion over what they said and did, particularly with
regard to their political opinions, no matter how subtly expressed. In 1995, the National
Intelligence Agency (N.I.A.), a secret police force deployed in the major settlements, was
formed, and the death penalty was reestablished. Both developments would have given the
impression of a distinct break with the Jawara era, which, although it was also autocratic in
many respects, nonetheless had guaranteed the citizen's basic rights (Wiseman 1996:928).
Even later, in 1996, the military demonstrated its ability to guarantee a peaceful transition to
democracy, and a few months after the coup Gambians looked anxiously towards the future.
To many elderly people it seemed that the world they had helped to construct had suddenly
fragmented in dangerous and unpredictable ways. Born in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s, they
passionately engaged in politics in the 1950s and 60s, when the quest for self-determination
reached the Gambia. The story of Cherno and the bridge, along with other memories of the
colonial period, thus served as a reminder of the forms of discipline and coercion elderly
people experienced when Cherno governed alongside a white man. At that time there were no
political parties, nor any assemblies that did not serve simply as open displays of consensus in
favor of the colonial government's directives. The public rudeness of the military towards
elderly people was mentioned when they recalled how impolite the British authorities were
and their inability to deal with the hierarchy of age. Whites were able to get away with such
behavior, but it was certainly not tolerated when exhibited by local youths.
In any case, Cherno enjoyed being surrounded by teenage boys and girls and single young
men; he threw parties for them, which were public ceremonies with dancing and food, and they
would follow him all over the region. These same young people were also enlisted in the
colonial army, however. When the commissioner needed them, they would carry his luggage.
They collected rocks to build the hospital, dug graves, and repaired public buildings. Indeed,
military rule was interpreted against the backdrop of those familiar experiences from a period
in which all forms of popular representation were lacking, when the orders of British author-
ities were followed immediately and to the letter, and in which those unfortunate enough to do
otherwise were punished accordingly. Thus when the elders of Fuladu West commented on the
most autocratic aspects of their present experience, they took their cues from memories of the
time of the white man. In so doing, they constructed a complex vision of a hitherto forgotten
dimension of the colonial state, that is, its complicity with the strategies of personal prestige
pursued by men like Cherno.
Political Memories as Context in Cherno's Story
Memory is at work in Cherno's story. I have stressed its constructive activity in narrating the
vicissitudes of this old chief. Past experiences mold the perception of contemporary events,
thus offering a set of cultural tools that allows historical subjects to negotiate a dynamic and
original synthesis between past and present. I have also revisited remembering and forgetting
as "tied to the very flow of social life and local people's attempts to control it" (Cole
1998:607). I consider Cherno to be a powerful historical symbol able to bring together an
ensemble of representations of political authority balancing between state and local spheres in
colonial and postcolonial times. In his story one can detect a series of uses of the past that
dialogue with several other moments in Gambian history: the recovery of native political tradi-
tions in the colonial period; their idealized yet multifaceted interpretations in the 1970s; and
the problematic discourse on colonial time emerging in the last months of 1994, just after the
military takeover. There is also a tension between the official forms of historical memory,
gradually stratified in written colonial records and in the post-independence press, and the
controversial dimensions of the elderly reminiscences of colonial times, always at hand to be
redeployed in the flux of social life, but with a moral and "semantic value added" (Comaroff
and Comaroff 1999:30; Werbner 1998).
I discussed at length Cherno's relationship with the British administration and its transfor-
mation with time. In conclusion, I wish to stress once again the pragmatic and situational
attitude entertained by the colonial state with local history and political traditions. To rule the
country the British needed to co-opt indigenous political structures, a point already given
much attention in the historiography of colonialism (Crowder 1978, 1993; Klein 1968; Pels
1996; Ranger 1996). They also needed local historical memories, despite the Imperial notion
that they were the ones bringing history and civilization to indigenous people. The Gambian
national archives contain many examples of this activity of rewriting the past for adminis-
trative purposes: from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1930s, British officers
compiled district histories and ethnographic surveys, in order to establish their own legit-
imacy.30 As far as Fuladu West is concerned, they documented how Cherno Kady's grandfather
and father had been able to consolidate a large military kingdom, which extended from the
River Gambia up to the border of present-day Guinea Bissau. Fuladu West was a small but
important part of this political reality, as it was here that Cherno's father, Mussa Moloh, chose
to take refuge, together with his entourage, at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1924,
when Cherno was named chief, Mussa Moloh was still alive, although tired by his adventurous
life and by his confrontation with the colonizers. Oral sources insist on the fact that the British
did not want the post of district chief to go to one of his sons, but colonial documents give the
impression that the British were actually pleased with the choice. It mattered little to them that
succession from father to son was a controversial practice, enforced by Mussa Moloh himself
against the more ancient custom, in which political power was transferred from elder to
younger brothers. British officers thus consolidated as custom an institution that was in itself
an innovation. In 1950, when Cherno retired, after Farli had in turn tried to recover the idea of
fraternal succession, another history of Fuladu was written down. This historical recon-
struction belied the ideas that former administrations had put into practice, and presented the
Baldens as being themselves usurpers who had entrusted the control of Fuladu to their best
men, evaluating their subjects more on the basis of their bravery and commitment than on their
lineage.31
Cherno himself played an active role in this process of historical revisionism. First of all,
because British administrators collected historical and ethnographic materials from the chiefs
themselves, and second, as he tried to embody in his own life an interpretation of native
political traditions. He represented for the British the very model of a traditional chief, with
his attendant virtues and defects; Fuladu West people could understand him as a colonial chief
thanks to his ability to evoke a secular vision of power and political identities, circulating in
the society and grounded in popular memory.32
Approaching the post-independence period the vicissitudes of this old chief, and the way in
which they became a part of a more general discourse on the virtues of tradition, allow a
greater reflection on the pattern of continuities and divergences between the postcolonial state
and its colonial predecessors. It is misleading to think that independence could have meant for
African states an absolute break with the colonial past. The postcolonial state, as Achille
Mbembe has stressed (2002:24), is still a product of the colonial period, rearticulating not only
its structures, but also its everyday strategies of control (see also Comaroff and Comaroff
1999; Ranger 1996).
In the Gambia, Dawda Jawara's government revealed almost immediately its intention to
strictly monitor local politics through the chiefs, reducing the autonomy they had enjoyed
during colonial times. It did nothing, however, to radically modify local government structures,
and it continued moreover to assert the importance of traditional authorities in the lives of rural
Gambians. A set of ambivalent processes thus came into being: from one side, the dominant
party promoted a major centralization in local government, and played the elected members of
the Area Councils against the chiefs, in order to prevent the emergence of a strong leadership at
the local level (Gailey 1964:199). From the other side, it partially appropriated the local
language of politics, using chiefs themselves and their networks of alliances in order to support
the party politics in the rural areas and to maintain the opposition under control. Popular
colonial chiefs—such as Cherno—were emblematic figures who helped to inscribe the present
in a more extended historical narrative. In this vision of history, the peoples of the River Gambia
had autonomously governed themselves, conserving their traditions even under colonial
domination. Colonialism represented only an interruption that could be overcome, forgetting
what were the more brutal elements of this experience in order to look towards the future with
optimism. Official history carefully silenced any information that might call this view into
question. In any case, as long as its witnesses were alive, the past is never completely erased.
In part, the article written in the mid-1970s reproduced this idealized perception of traditional
authority, though it was balanced against a critique of the central government It calls for
popular participation as a solution for the inability of the state to fulfill its modernizing agenda.
After the 1994 military takeover, people expressed an even more critical attitude towards both
the P.P.P. era and the new self-appointed rulers of the country: the combination of a politically
uncertain period with a research project aimed specifically at the colonial period (my own)
gave to the elders of Fuladu West the chance to produce historical visions, in which the
positive dimensions of Cherno's times were tempered with an emphasis on the hidden violence
both in the colonial and postcolonial state. At that specific moment in Gambian history, these
recollections also provided an opportunity to debate contemporary political events in an
indirect way, without openly expressing one's own opinion. It is a specific present that
valorizes particular accounts of the past (White 2001:286). Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff
(1999:30) have underscored how electoral processes in present-day Africa offer an opportunity
for "grassroots exercises of the political imagination," in which images and signs taken from
the past are recycled, at times in a subversive manner. The same is true for the 1994 coup
d'etat: the sudden fracture of a consolidated but political order allowed for a rearticulation of
memories, transforming the link between past and present into a more thorny question about
the nature of power and its exercise within society. Cherno's figure directs attention to the
ambivalence of political power: power nourishes the entourage, but it is also nourished by the
people in the form of gifts, taxes, and tribute. Popularity and the ability to perceive, and fulfill,
the needs of the populace should temper the use of force. Compared to the current situation, at
least the old chief had always displayed a feeling of sympathy towards the problems if not the
misery of his own subjects, trying to feed within his district an atmosphere of solidarity, which
none of the postcolonial politicians has been successful in creating. Because of this Cherno
remains a strong image: one can't get rid of him, but neither can his defects be overlooked,
unless one wants to allow for the justification of future injustice. The present is not just the
future of the past, it is also the past of the future, and ultimately it is the future with which
memory is entrusted.
Notes
This article was originally presented at the Fifth Conference on Mande Studies, Leiden, The
Netherlands, 17-22 June 2002, in the panel "Cultural politics and historical memories in the
Mande world," co-chaired by Alice Bellagamba (Universita del Piemonte Orientale) and Rosa
DeJorio (University of Northern Florida). The ethnographic materials derive from a long
period of research in The Gambia, begun in 1992. My focus has been the colonial experience,
and the modalities through which history is recollected, constructed, and transmitted in oral
narratives. The analysis of colonial archives, as in the case of Cherno Kady Balden, has been
carried out with the purpose of comparing and putting into dialogue oral sources and
documents, in order to see the multiple representations surrounding certain historical events,
like Cherno's dismissal from his post. I am solely responsible for the opinions expressed in this
article, and I thank the elders of Fuladu West who are no longer living, along with all the other
people of the area who allowed me to carry out my research during this decade. Setrag
Manoukhian, Rosa DeJorio, Peter Weil, Allan Howard, and Sara Brett-Smith offered their
useful comments on the first drafts of this work, together with Susan Hirsch and two
anonymous referees. Photographs of Cherno Kady Baldeh and Farli Balden, together with
other useful ethnographic materials, have been sent to me by David Gamble. I also wish to
express my gratitude to Bakary Sidibeh, retired Chairman of the National Council for Arts and
Culture, Banjul, The Gambia, as he has kindly followed the development of my research
during all these years, sharing with me his unpublished materials and his accurate knowledge
of Gambian history and culture. Fieldwork has been authorized by the National Council for
Arts and Culture, Banjul, The Gambia, and sponsored by grants from the Italian Ministry for
University and Scientific Research and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the context
of the MEBAO project "Patrimoni culturali, musei, memoria e comunita locali in una
prospettiva comparativa" (Cultural heritage, museums, memory, and local communities in
comparative perspective).
1. Fuladu West, located approximately 300 kilometers from the Atlantic coast, is one of the
Gambia's administrative regions. In the years before British annexation, the district and
the surrounding areas were part of a recently formed kingdom also called Fuladu, which
extended from the River Gambia through Senegal to the border of present-day Guinea-
Bissau. Fuladu was formed in the second half of the nineteenth century, in a moment in
which the societies of Senegambia were undergoing a rapid process of transformation due
to a number of factors: the end of the transatlantic slave trade, the spread of the peanut as
the principal export crop, and the religious wars that paved the way to the eventual
Islamicization of the society. In Fuladu lands, up until this point, an elite of Mandinka
origin had controlled a population comprised of merchants, Islamicized groups, Fulbe
shepherds, Fulbe of servant origin dedicated to agriculture, artisans, and slaves. The
kingdom was born from the demonstrated ability of Alpha Moloh Baldeh (a rich,
respected, and, given his experience as a hunter, well-armed man of Fulbe origin) to forge
the consensus of those who had reason to resent Mandinka political supremacy. The son
of Alpha Moloh, Mussa Moloh Baldeh, secured his own supremacy through continual
negotiations with the Europeans, consenting to the subdivision of the region into
Portuguese, French, and British spheres of influence. In 1903 he took refuge in the
Protectorate of The Gambia, after receiving a tip that the French were about to arrest him.
He settled in the region of Fuladu West, where he died in 1931, after a three-year exile in
Sierra Leone (1919-1922) and subsequent repatriation, designed to demonstrate to the
populace the grace and goodwill of His Imperial Majesty. Part of the experiences of
Mussa Moloh Baldeh have been narrated in Bellagamba 2000, 2001, and 2002. As for
precolonial history, see Barry 1988; Bowan 1997; N'gaide 1997 and 1999 (with particular
attention to what was to become the French part of Fuladu kingdom).
2. See Ranger (1993) for a critical overview on the first ten years of debate on the "invention
of tradition" in colonial Africa, a debate which was raised by the volume he co-edited with
Eric Hobsbawm (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
3. See Ames 1967, Chapter 109, Local Government Act 26 of 1963, "An Act to amend,
consolidate and make better provision for local government in The Gambia other than in
Bathurst and for purposed and matters connected therewith and relating and incidental
thereto," pp. 2917-2955. See also Chapter 109, Georgetown Area Council Regulations,
pp. 2993-2999. According to this text Georgetown Area Council consists of nineteen
members, with the Commissioner as Chairman, the five head chiefs of the Area as ex-
officio members, twelve elected members, and a nominated female member appointed by
the Minister of Local Government.
4 . "Local government Bill Set for Enactment," by P. K. Jarju, The Independent (5-7 April
2002).
5. In the 1970s, the Gambia Government inaugurated its own politics of culture, promoting
the collection, transcription, and translation of oral narratives related to the precolonial
past. Monuments and historical sites were catalogued and their history carefully
annotated. Ethnographic objects were collected in field expeditions throughout the
Senegambia region. The Oral History and Antiquities Division—established in 1971, first
as a branch of the Record Office and then as an institution related to the office of the Vice-
President—was responsible for this activity as well as for the co-ordination and follow up
of foreign scholars carrying out their fieldwork in the Gambia. For a comparative
discussion on the policy of culture and history implemented in the age of African nation-
alism, see Jewsiewicki's (1989) critical comments on the development of African history
after independence.
6. "In no case the appointment of a head chief is hereditary. They are elected by headmen. It
may happen that a man of no importance is put into a position of considerable power. This
power from time immemorial has been used by the chiefs for the purpose of enriching
himself. It is not surprising that he should continue to make the attempt. It might be well
to make the chiefship hereditary, not necessarily descending from father to son, but
continuing within the same family" (Report on South Bank Province by Major Macklin,
Public Record Office, CO 87/216, 9/08/1922).
7. Gambian Record Office, CSO/654, Major Macklin, Monthly Diary for 1924, South Bank
Province, 6/3/1924.
8. In 1892, with the establishment of the Protectorate, the post of "travelling commissioner"
was also created. The travelling commissioner was responsible for a number of district
areas, brought together and made into provinces, i.e., the North Bank Province, the South
Bank Province, etc. Commissioners were also the main agents of the colonial state in the
field, a role that they maintained after the independence of the Gambia. In the early
colonial period, they had to collect taxes, administer justice, and monitor headchiefs and
headmen in the performance of their duties (see Bellagamba 2002; Gailey 1964).
9. One should also take into account the comments to this proposal made by the Governor
of Gambia, London, Public Record Office, CO 1018/4, Lord Hailey African Survey
Papers, The Gambia, general papers, Sir A. Richards' Report of 9 July 1935.
10. Gambian Record Office, CSO 4/243, Intelligence Reports, MacCarthy Island Province,
Confidential attachment to MacCarthy Island Report, January to June 1941.
11. Gambian Record Office, Banjul, The Gambia, CSO 3/ 152, Confidential Files, Head
Chiefs Confidential Reports, MacCarthy Island Province, 1930-1937, 1935.
12. Gambian Record Office, CSO 3/22, Protectorate, Upper River Province, Commission of
Inquiry, Appointment.
13. Brikama (Kombo) was one of the favorite locations for the Conference of Protectorate
Chiefs, an annual meeting with the Governor and Native Authorities, explicitly created to
increase the district chiefs' feeling of belonging to the hierarchies of the colonial state. See
also Gailey 1961; Hailey 1951:349. J. Sealy became commissioner of MacCarthy Island
Province after the end of World War II. His notes are quoted in the fascicle on Cherno
compiled by the colonial administration; see CSO 62/5, Political records, Confidential
reports on Seyfu Cherno Kadde Bande from the year 1944. Sealy is remembered by the
people as a corrupt man, easy to bribe. He himself was dissatisfied with the central admin-
istration and, according to recollections of the elderly, escaped from the Kombo area with
rent-tax. Davies, instead, is seen as a tough man, ruthless in the performance of his duties,
a man who believed in discipline and order, having served in the Army during World War
n.
14. Farli Baldeh was one of Cherno Kady's younger brothers. He helped Cherno for quite a
long time in the administration of Fuladu West. Cherno and Farli did not have the same
mother. The competition between them for the office of district chief is conceived of as a
classical example of faadinyaa, fight between brothers from different mothers; see Austen
1999.
15. Mahira Baji, city of Bansang, Fuladu West, 27 December 1994. Mahira Baji was the son
of Mankaman Baji, former town chief of Bansang, and follower of Cherno Kady Baldeh.
Mahira died in 1995. The text was collected in Mandinka and translated into English by
Bakary Sidibeh and Alice Bellagamba.
16. Mohammadou Farli Baldeh, Yoroberikunda village, Fuladu West, 8/12/1994. Recording
by Alice Bellagamba and Bakary Sumbo Kora; transcription and translation by Bakary
Sumbo Kora. Mohammadou Farli Baldeh is the official historian of the Baldeh family. He
is the author of a manuscript in Arabic, in which the events and the alliances that marked
the history of the family are carefully annotated and commented upon. Mohammadou is
the son of Farli Baldeh, and in his narrative he minimizes the role played by his father in
Cherno's dismissal from the office of head chief of Fuladu West.
17 . Gambian Record Office, CSO 62/5, Political records, Fuladu West District: complaints
against the administration of Seyfou Cherno Kady Baldeh, 20 June 1950.
18. Gambian Record Office, CSO 62/5, Political records, Commissioner Bailey, May 1942,
Interim report on Fuladu West.
19. Gambian Record Office, CSO 62/5, Political records, Note for Executive Council,
Confidential, File N. S. 2181, Appendix A.
20. Mahira Baji, city of Bansang, Fuladu West, 27 December 1994.
21. Gambian Record Office, CSO 62/5, Political records, Note for Executive Council,
Findings and recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry appointed by His
Excellency the Governor to inquire and report into the conduct of the Administration of
Fuladu West by Seyfu Cherno Kadde Bande.
22. See Ellis (2002:6) for a more general evaluation of this historical period in African history.
Wright (1997:22Iff.) analyzes the position of The Gambia in the world market and the
difficulties of Gambian fanners with their crops. Since the 1830s groundnuts emerged as
the main export crop from the River Gambia. The colonial government failed to
implement a diversification of the economy, and the problem was inherited by the
independent government. See also Sallah 1990.
23. "'Te sito' in Retrospect," The Gambia Outlook (June 16, 1976)- This article was pointed
out to me by David Gamble, whom I wish to thank for his encouraging attitude towards
my research.
24. See Weil (1968, 1971) for a good analysis of this mechanism at the village and district
level, in Mandinka-dominated areas of the Gambia. Ferme (1999) has recently taken up
again the theme of unity and consensus in Sierra Leone politics. She also stressed the role
played by district chiefs in the public display of Mende culture and traditions.
25. Gambian Record Office, CSO 3/233, Forced labour or compulsory labour draft
convention and reports concerning, From the commissioner of Upper River Province to
Colonial Secretary, 29 September 1937.
26. Gambian Record Office, CSO 3/234, The Forced Labour Ordinance, 1934, section 8.
27. For more details on Gambian political history, see Hughes 1975, 1983. Sallah (1990)
depicts a pessimistic picture of the Gambia in the late 1980s, stressing widespread
corruption and the inability of the government to face the needs of a growing population
(Sallah 1990:643-645). The same problems are addressed in The Courier 142
(November-December 1993); The Gambia Country Reports.
28. See "Decrees 3, 4 signed by AFPRC Chairman," 77K? Gambia Weekly 32 (August 12,
1994):9; Wiseman 1996. In 1996 Captain Yaya Jammeh became the new president of the
Gambia. He was re-elected in 2001. For a general view of contemporary official political
discourse in the Gambia see "Fantanka for The Gambia"; "My Vision and Mission"; In
June 2002, Sir Dawda Jawara, having been in exile since 1994, came back to the Gambia.
In the last few years, political leaders of the P.P.P. generation have received permission to
engage in politics again, a chance that had been denied to them in the 1996 elections.
29. Fuladu West District, Interview, 22/09/1994.

30. Public Record Office CO 87/1979, Governor Denton to Secretary of State for Colonies,
des. N. 61, 27/04/1908, Native law and custom. The reports are available at Gambian
Record Office, CSO 76, Dr. Gamble's Files. Kuklick (1991) mentions the ethnographic
activity carried on by the colonial government both in the Gambia and in other West
African colonies.
31. Gambian Record Office, CSO 62/5, Political records, G. Humphrey Smith, 11/1/1952,
Appointment of a district head of Fulladu West District. For a history of the Baldeh
compiled at the beginning of the twentieth century see: Public Record Office, CO 87/179,
Governor Denton to Secretary of State for Colonies, 6/05/1908 "Short History of Mussa
Moloh" collected by Cap.W B. Stanley, 24/02/1908.
32. In Mali, Guinea, and the Gambia the great legends tell of the deeds of Sunjata Keita,
mythical founder of the medieval kingdom of Mali; combined with historical accounts,
they explain the expansion of this kingdom's influence until it reached the Atlantic Coast.
They constitute a privileged context for the transmission of political ideals and virtues,
permeate behavioral norms, and are the axes in the construction of contemporary
identities (Austen 1999; Leach 2000:584). For an analysis of the precolonial conception
of power in the West Sudanese savanna, and in the present-day regions of the Gambia and
Casamance, see Cissoko 1969. The vision of power that Cherno represented was rooted
in centuries of history, and in their family history the Baldeh declared their adherence to
Mande political ideals. This point has been analyzed in Bellagamba 2000 and 2001.
Furthermore, it is important to remember how, in the Cherno era, not only head chiefs, but
also their interpreters—whom the English carefully chose from the younger members of
the most prestigious families—were surrounded by their bards. The model of precolonial
power idealized in these narratives was called into play on a daily basis not only to explain
the present but also to guide political activity and to judge the work of the chiefs
themselves.
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November 2002] Page 21

Portrait of a Chief between Past and Present:

Copyright © 2002, American Anthropological Association

knowledge to which it gave rise"

Cherno Kady Baldeh as portrayed in 1945 by Daryll

29. Fuladu West District, Interview, 22/09/1994.

GAMBIAN RECORD OFFICE, BANJUL, THE GAMBIA

CSO 3/22, Protectorate, Upper River Province, Commission of Inquiry, Appointment.

CSO 3/218, Confidential files, Debts owned by the Seyfos to Commissioner.

CSO 4/243, Intelligence Reports, MacCarthy Island Province, Confidential Attachment to

CSO 3/234, The Forced Labour Ordinance, 1934.

CSO 62/5 Political Records, Fuladu West (1930-1952).

CSO 76, Dr. Gamble's files.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON, KEW GARDENS

CO 87/216, 9/08/1922, Report on South Bank Province by Major Macklin.

CO 88/4, The Gambia Protectorate Ordinance, 1894.

CO 88/5, The Gambia Protectorate Ordinance, 1902.

CO 88/8, The Native Authority Ordinance, 1933.

Published and unpublished materials

Ames, Sir Cecil G., ed.

Cissoko, Seke"ne Mody

Hughes Arnold, ed.

Village Parapolitical System." In Papers on the Manding. Carleton T.

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